NEW YORK - June 9, 2017 (Investorideas.com newswire) Companies bracing for cyberattacks on their data systems may be driving up the price of Bitcoin, attendees at a panel moderated by Jim Cramer at The Deal's Corporate Governance conference in New York heard on Monday. The event was hosted by The Deal and BoardEx, business units of TheStreet, Inc. (NASDAQ: TST).

During a panel discussion of how companies can best manage cyber risk, Kirill Tatarinov, CEO of cloud security company Citrix Systems, told the gathering that companies in the U.K. were storing Bitcoin to pay hackers who might attack their systems with ransomware. The most significant recent attack, known as WannaCry, required ransom to be paid in the digital currency.

"We've seen people pay up after ransomware attacks," said Tatarinov. "We've seen people who are proactively bulking up on Bitcoin anticipating those attacks. This is happening."

The observation prompted panel moderator Jim Cramer, founder of TheStreet, Inc., to wonder aloud if that wasn't what was driving up the price of Bitcoin. The price of Bitcoin jumped from $1,692 on May 12, when WannaCry hit, to recently trade at $2,785.

During a keynote interview with Cramer, Delaware Supreme Court Chief Justice Leo E. Strine Jr. observed that activist investors' intentions too often fail to coincide with those of ordinary investors. Strine said the loudest voices come not from index funds, but from activist funds.

"I think it's very frustrating for companies because you're not always sure that the people who are speaking really are aligned with investors," said Chief Justice Strine.

Throughout the day, panelists debated and answered questions on corporate governance hot buttons including how to contain activist investors, the merits of Snap Inc.'s non-voting share structure and how ransomware fears may be driving up Bitcoin's price, among other topics.

The Deal (www.thedeal.com) provides actionable, intraday coverage of mergers, acquisitions and all other changes in corporate control to institutional investors, private equity, hedge funds and the firms that serve them. The Deal is a business unit of TheStreet, Inc. (NASDAQ: TST, www.t.st), a leading financial news and information provider. Other business units include TheStreet (www.thestreet.com), which is celebrating its 20th year of producing unbiased business news and market analysis; BoardEx (www.boardex.com), the leading relationship mapping service of corporate directors and officers; and RateWatch (www.rate-watch.com) which supplies rate and fee data from banks and credit unions across the U.S.

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